


Against His Own Shield

by Ysabetwordsmith



Series: Love Is For Children [28]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Captain America's Shield - Freeform, Gen, History, Obstruction, Obstructive Bureaucrat, Rebellion, Rebellious Steve Rogers, Secrets, Spies & Secret Agents, The Winter Soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-06-01 01:58:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6496348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysabetwordsmith/pseuds/Ysabetwordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers digs into the grimy underbelly of SHIELD and is not pleased by what he finds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Against His Own Shield

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second freebie for the April 5, 2016 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from . It also fills the "Obstructive Bureaucrat" square in [my 4-1-16 card](http://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/10515243.html) for the Archetypal Characters Bingo card.

The more Steve found out about  
SHIELD, the less he liked it.

He found out that it had absorbed  
the Strategic Scientific Reserve,  
which he could remember as  
the somewhat shady source  
of Project: Rebirth.

Regrettably its scientific reputation  
had fallen right into the latrine,  
Steve discovered as he read  
Dr. Foster's scathing critique.

He knew that there were problems --  
he'd found the Phase II weapons  
during the Chitauri incident, after all --  
and it bothered him to see just  
how deep the cracks went.

A lot of lies, a lot of murder.  
Cloaks and daggers and  
all that standard spy stuff.  
Torture. Slavery.

It turned his stomach.

Everyone expected him to toe the line,  
because he was Captain America,  
but the thing was, everyone had  
forgotten how many rules he'd  
had to break to _get there_.

Steve liked rules, he really did,  
but only if they were _good_ rules,  
fair rules. The Nazis had been  
pretty big on rules too, only they  
didn't care about the good part.

So he'd learned to be careful  
about which rules he obeyed,  
because not doing that led to  
"just following orders."

Somehow it still surprised people  
when he spoke out against  
the things going wrong.

Honestly, it's like nobody even knew him.

You'd think they would have read  
the books. There were enough of those.

Agent Coulson just smiled when  
Steve stormed out of an office or  
blew his stack over something  
unearthed in the paperwork.  
__  
He had read the books, all right.  
Agent Coulson always did his homework.

It was Agent Veeble who finally  
put the last straw on the camel's back.

Steve had been digging into  
the history of the Winter Soldier,  
and not taking "That's classified"  
for an answer anymore.

So when Agent Veeble refused  
to release the paper-only copies  
of certain things that had happened  
to the Winter Soldier in SHIELD custody,  
it was Captain America who leaned  
over the desk and said clearly,

"Son, if you don't open that file cabinet,  
I will open it myself, and there won't  
be much cabinet left when I'm done."

"You can't do that," Agent Veeble whimpered.  
"This is SHIELD property. You don't  
have the proper clearance."

Captain America unlimbered his shield  
and bounced it against the metal floor  
with a deep, resonant _bong_. "This is  
my clearance," he said. "Or did you  
forget where the name came from?"

The bitterness of the contradiction  
struck him all over again, how badly  
the agency had turned out despite  
the hope that Peggy Carter and  
Howard Stark poured into it.

This was not what he sacrificed himself for.

That was when Assistant Director Hill  
came in and assessed the situation.  
"What's going on in here?" she asked.

"Oh, thank God you're here, ma'am!"  
exclaimed Agent Veeble. "He's trying  
to get into the secure files about  
the Winter Soldier. Make him stop."

"I'm not here to make him stop,"  
said Assistant Director Hill. "I'm  
here to make sure that he doesn't  
drop you down one of the engines."  
Her fingers tapped at the keyboard,  
and then she unlocked the cabinet.  
"Or deliver a speech that melts  
what little brain you have."

"I wouldn't drop him down an engine,"  
said Captain America. "Those things  
are fragile and really hard to fix."

Assistant Director Hill did not laugh,  
but one corner of her mouth twitched.  
"Good luck with the files," she said.

Even a cursory glance was enough  
to tell Captain America that SHIELD  
was even more of a wreck than he'd  
thought, and that it was going to take  
a lot of time to go through the mess  
and figure out how to clean it up.

So he hefted one drawer under  
his left arm and another under  
his right arm. He might as well  
go back to Avengers Tower where  
he could do the research in comfort ...  
and more safety than here.

"What's with Captain America using  
his spear against his own shield?"  
Agent May asked in a dry tone.

"It's not 'my' SHIELD,"  
Captain America said,  
"but it _will be."_

**Author's Note:**

> The idiom 自相矛盾 _(zì xiāng máo dùn),_ which literally means to use one’s spear against one’s shield, evolved from this story.  
>  \-- [Chinese Idioms](http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1151409-chinese-idioms-use-ones-spear-against-ones-own-shield-%E8%87%AA%E7%9B%B8%E7%9F%9B%E7%9B%BE/)
> 
> Maria Hill: What does S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for, Agent Ward?  
> Grant Ward: Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.  
> Hill: And what does that mean to you?  
> Ward: It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out "shield."  
> \-- [Agents of SHIELD](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Agents_of_S.H.I.E.L.D.)
> 
> The above conversation, while flippant, is in fact true based on [another conversation in canon](https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/22dpnt/).
> 
> [The Strategic Scientific Reserve](http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Strategic_Scientific_Reserve) was a forerunner of SHIELD, the two agencies spanning [Captain America: The First Avenger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America:_The_First_Avenger) and [Captain America: The Winter Soldier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America:_The_Winter_Soldier) among others.
> 
> "[Just following orders](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JustFollowingOrders)" has appeared both as an entertainment trope and as the [Nuremberg defense](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nuremberg_defense) in history.
> 
> Captain America is famous for his hard-hitting speeches. Here's one about how [America is nothing](https://aetherealengineer.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/whatif44.jpg) but what people make of it, one on [tolerance vs. discrimination](http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/8/80103/3816075-screen+shot+2014-05-11+at+9.40.26+pm.png), and one about [standing up for what's right](http://lowbrowcomics.com/2015/05/15/captain-america-speech-civil-war/).
> 
> [Agent May](http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Melinda_May) has a dry wit.


End file.
